Some Say John Wilkes Booth Filled More Days

We investigated the story behind Abraham Lincoln's death a little while ago. We posited that it wasn't John Wilkes Booth's weapon that killed the President. Now we wonder if Booth himself may have died another way.

"Pop! A shot was fired and, 143 years ago Saturday, John Wilkes Booth - assassin of Abraham Lincoln - collapsed to the ground, mortally wounded in the neck. That's what history says.

But two Booth family descendants - Joanne Hulme of Philadelphia, and her sister, Virginia Kline of Warminster, Pa. - aren't convinced. They think that another man was killed and that Booth, who they believe was the president's assassin, lived to a ripe old age.

The sisters say that using DNA tests you can prove that Booth escaped on the day he supposedly died. Another researcher has requested for specimen taken from the scenes then in order to investigate the claim. They want to set the record straight.

"It's not too late to set the record straight," added Jan Herman, editor-in-chief of Navy Medicine, the Navy's official medical journal. "This is not a minor footnote in history."

Booth was an actor by trade. We think that even the best actor would have a hard time convincing any audience that he was actually deceased. Even if Booth could somehow have pulled it off, he did so by dragging someone else's reputation in the mud.

[Arizona Republic]